Political Irrationality: The World's Most Important
Problem (And How to Solve It)
Political
irrationality is the world's most important problem. Millions of people around
the world have lost their jobs. We have seen rioting in Cairo, Damascus, Athens
and London. Bombs dismember innocent citizens on a daily basis; countrymen kill
each other in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and the Congo. Countries take years
to recover from natural catastrophes. Global warming emissions have been
utterly unaffected by governmental regulations or discourse. None of these
problems can be effectively addressed with a crippled political system.
But research
from fields as diverse as cognitive psychology, neuroscience and behavioral
economics suggests that when it comes to politics, most people are irrational,
most of the time. We are biased and overconfident in our political opinions but
generally unable to perceive this irrationality in ourselves or in our fellow
partisans, though we can easily spot it in our opponents.
Politicians
don't have the answer. They are required to proclaim pristine values even
though they must win electoral battles at any cost, which inevitably means
selling out to elite interests or caving in to pressure from partisan factions.
If you want to go into politics, it helps to be a hypocrite and smooth liar, so
what kind of politicians are we going to get? Read the papers. The result is
visible in our current ongoing political fiasco, a slow-moving train wreck. The
world's governments are not only ineffective, they often cause problems
themselves, provoking social unrest and legitimizing corruption.
After the
recent debacle over the U.S. budget and the near-collapse of the euro, many of
the world's citizens are disgusted with their elected representatives. Sadly,
though, they don't seem to have the slightest idea as to what to do about it.
Most obvious is the "throw the bums out" strategy seen in the
so-called Arab Spring. The problem with this strategy is that new bums always
come in. As we have seen in the former Soviet Union, the new bums can be even
worse than the old ones. Rotation of power is a palliative, not a solution.
Here lies
one of the great challenges in overcoming the irrationality of our current
political systems. Whenever there is a disaster, such as in the recent
financial chaos, both sides react by motivating their partisans to become ever
more polarized and angry. Thus, our modern political systems have a powerful
built-in shock absorber - instead of blaming the system, as they should, the
citizens only blame half the system, the other half. When things go badly,
citizens get angry at the opposing party's leaders, and they hope and strive
fervently to win the next presidential election. Consequently, about half the
populace is always disappointed with the current leader.
This state
of affairs would eventually become unsustainable, but our system is
self-righting in that the incumbent party always gets thrown out eventually.
Each half of our polity takes turns being angry and frustrated. We end up with
zig-zag, yo-yo government. The left-wing administrations pull the government to
the left; then the right-wing administrations pull it back. One side digs a
hole, the other fills it up, then the first digs it out again.
Politics is
a mesmerizing shell game. It's hard not to fall for it, because it's hard not
to hate one or the other of the party leaders (politicians are helpfully
obnoxious). The two wings of the political spectrum play good cop/bad cop with
the citizenry. They end up splitting the nation like rival sheepherders, with
the sheep showing up every four years to be proudly shorn at the ballot box.
The unfortunate result is a society divided against itself, mired in
parliamentary gridlock and culture wars.
What's the
answer?
First, let
us accept that dissatisfaction is necessary. That is the silver lining in our
current financial predicament. People are furious and disgusted? Good. Things
change when people are fed up with the status quo. Let it build a little more.
Second,
people need to begin to ask themselves: is there a better way? Is there some
alternative to our so-called modern democracies? What's the main problem with
our current system of government? How can we fix it? Nothing will change until
people begin to ask these questions.
The answer,
as I have suggested before, is an open secret: democracy. It is still a great
idea, we just haven't tried it yet. Nobody has.
I propose
the adoption of citizen-controlled democratic mechanisms as the best way of
combating our habitual political irrationality. One of the main problems with
our current system is that elections, perversely, are actually an un-democratic
mechanism. We have been brainwashed that democracy requires free elections, but
the Founding Fathers of the USA were perfectly clear and prescient when they
associated elections with republican government, which is a euphemism for
electoral oligarchy.
Referenda
are not the answer either because they are so easily captured by special
interests. The most powerful answer for controlling the power of politicians
lies in that great innovation of medieval law, the jury. We use juries because,
in a sense, we do not entirely trust the judge. Similarly, we do not entirely
trust the politician. It is time to supervise the politician with legislative
juries.
This is not
an entirely new idea and great work has been done on it by academics such as
Ned Crosby and James Fishkin. Experiments have been attempted in dozens of
countries. A number of possible systems and democratic innovations are set
forth in my book, Red Genes Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality. If
you want to save the world, the tools are out there. Start questioning, and
don't stop thinking.
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